Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- China said it was “highly
concerned” about the arrest of four of its citizens by
Singapore authorities for their role in a labor protest, the
island’s first strike since the 1980s.

The Chinese nationals were charged in court yesterday with
instigating SMRT Corp. bus drivers to take part in an illegal
strike this week, according to court filings. Police arrested
the four after the company said more than 170 drivers from the
mainland failed to report for duty on Nov. 26 and 88 halted work
on Nov. 27, disrupting some bus services.

“The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy in
Singapore are highly concerned about the case,” Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing today. Officials
have been in “close communication” with the Singapore
authorities, he said.

Singapore moved swiftly to quell the rare public display of
labor discord this week, reinforcing a decades-old focus on
avoiding what the government calls “adversarial and
confrontational” industrial relations. The last legal strike
was in 1986, involving the Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering
Employees Union and Hydril Pte., and the most recent illegal one
concerned airline pilots in 1980.

The four drivers are charged with conspiring to instigate
workers employed by SMRT Buses Ltd., according to charge sheets
filed at the city’s subordinate court yesterday. If convicted,
they can be jailed for as long as 12 months, fined as much as
S$2,000 ($1,600), or both.

Baidu Post

One of the drivers was also charged with inciting the
strike with a post in Chinese on Baidu entitled “The insults
and humiliations suffered by Singapore Drivers (SMRT)” that
asked “where is the dignity of the People’s Republic of China
bus drivers,” according to the court document. Baidu Inc. owns
China’s most popular search engine.

Police were deployed to stand watch as the workers stayed
in their dormitories to express unhappiness over pay earlier
this week, and Singapore’s Acting Minister for Manpower Tan
Chuan-Jin declared their action an illegal strike. Attendance
was “back to normal” on Nov. 28, SMRT said.

“Even as we take a firm position on this, it is important
that we remain circumspect and not generalize unfairly,” Tan
said on his Facebook page after the arrests. “The many foreign
workers here in various sectors also play their part in
contributing to our society.”

14 Days

Strikes in Singapore are illegal for workers in essential
services unless their employers are given two weeks’ notice,
according to the Manpower Ministry. While workers cannot “take
the law into their own hands,” companies must also look at how
they manage and treat their employees, Tan said.

SMRT is Singapore’s biggest subway operator and one of its
two main bus companies. The company said the workers who
protested this week were unhappy with their salary increments
after recent adjustments made by the company.

The wage for an SMRT driver from China is S$1,075 a month
and the company pays accommodation costs of S$275 monthly. A
driver from Malaysia makes S$1,400 a month with no housing
benefits. Workers from the two groups have different bonus
remuneration packages.

China’s Ministry of Commerce is “very concerned” about
the pay dispute and wants involved parties to “respond to the
legitimate demands of Chinese bus drivers for equal pay and
treatment,” the nation’s official Xinhua News Agency said
yesterday, citing a statement from the ministry.

China Relations

Trade between Singapore and China grew 6.4 percent in 2011
to S$101.4 billion, according to the island’s Ministry of Trade
and Industry. The two countries signed a free trade agreement in
2008. China sends its officials to Singapore for training and
the city state’s Nanyang Technological University has taught
more than 12,000 officials from China in its managerial
economics and public administration programs.

The Chinese embassy said it is seeking to visit the
detained drivers as soon as possible and hopes their rights will
be protected. It urged the parties involved to remain calm and
work together to resolve the matter, saying it will monitor
developments closely.

“The illegal strikes are not acceptable and have
undermined the industrial harmony we have built over the
years,” the Manpower Ministry said in a statement. “These
instigators must be dealt with in accordance with laws.”

1950s Riots

Labor protests in the 1950s led to riots and deaths and the
government subsequently changed the legal framework to reduce
“adversarial and confrontational” industrial relations and
promote investment, according to the Manpower Ministry.

In the last legal strike, union members at oilfield
equipment company Hydril went on strike in 1986 over what they
saw as the unfair dismissal of nine employees and victimization
of union leaders, the Straits Times reported then. The strike
received support from the National Trades Union Congress,
Singapore’s umbrella labor movement with ties to the government.

Recent wage disputes between employers and workers in the
city state have involved pilots from the national carrier
Singapore Airlines Ltd. After protests by pilots over lower pay,
the country changed its labor laws in 2004 to allow trade union
executives to negotiate and agree to wage agreements without the
approval of its members.

A majority of SMRT’s foreign bus drivers aren’t union
members, compared to most of their counterparts at ComfortDelgro
Corp., Singapore’s biggest operator of taxis and buses, the NTUC
said Nov. 28.

“There are valuable lessons to be learnt from this
incident at SMRT,” the NTUC said. “Management should recognize
the positive role the union can play. Union will continue to
step up efforts to bring more foreign workers into their
membership base.”